Gryphonic

I’ve just finished watching the first two episodes of the new Star Trek: Discovery series. Fortunately, I was in to catch it and watch it live, otherwise I probably would have missed it. While Space Channel here in Canada is airing it, it seems that for some reason they delayed the start time by 18 minutes. Of course, many PVRs only download their guide data once a day, so would not have updated themselves for the delayed start time. Not a very good start to a premiere, really.

Taking a look on Twitter, I’ve seen many positive comments about it. I’m going to be one of the seemingly few negatives.

Let’s start off with the “elephant in the room” first of all – the technology. This series is meant to be in the ‘prime’ timeline (that is to say, what the original series back in the 1960’s gave us). Interviews with the show-runners have said that they couldn’t go back and give us a look that was along the lines of The Original Series because audiences today will turn off and expect better. Perhaps so. I’m all for updating the look of things, but the technology of where things are in the Discovery series now seems at a level that rivals that of The Next Generation. The main guilty piece of tech here is the emergency forcefield technology all over the place. It stuck out like a sore thumb.

Another part that I’m having issue with is the relation of central character – Michael Burnham – to Sarek of Vulcan; aka, Spock’s father. In this series, Burnham is Sarek’s ward, living with him – and presumably Amanda Grayon and Spock. Unless there is some acknowledgement of Spock in this series, this link is going to seem ‘forced-in’ and out of place.

Now the Klingons: I’m still having a tough time reconciling with their new appearance. If this group had been just one sect of them, I could have been fine with it, but when all the other houses apparently make an appearance and they’re all looking the same… I’m finding it harder to believe. Especially when we need to consider that during the events of Enterprise the reasons for their more humanoid appearance in TOS is somewhat explained. Now we have this, set 10 years before TOS and they’re looking more Klingony than they should? Eh…

Finally, what seems to be missing is the underlying philosophy of studying humanity that is Star Trekis. There didn’t seem to be any of that in these first two opening episodes.

So, thus far… a lacking of “Star Trek”, and an even more obvious lacking of the starship “Discovery” itself.

Perhaps next week we might actually see the true premiere of Star Trek: Discovery. Until then, I’m not sold on it.

It’s been a rather tough past five days for me.

Last Friday, May 26th, I got home and tried to reply to someone at around 4:45pm – and was told by my Twitter client that I couldn’t because my account had been suspended. I checked on the website, and sure enough, my @tseatah account had been suspended.

But why? I had no warning and no notification by email that it had been suspended – let alone why. All the website pointed me to what a suspended account meant.

I submitted an appeal a short time later, trying to find out what I had done that had apparently run afoul of Twitter’s rules, and then had to wait.

On Sunday afternoon I received a canned reply that simply said:

Your account has been suspended due to multiple or repeat violations of the Twitter Rules.

Please do not respond to this email as replies will not be monitored.

This was puzzling to me. Apparently I had either violated multiple rules, or repeatedly violated them? Still confused, I read back over my past tweets (as I could still see them, even though anyone else could not), and could not find anything that looked like even the slightest violation of the rules.

Again, I submitted another appeal, trying to get clarification as to what I had done that warranted this.

This morning, Wednesday, May 31st, I get a reply to that appeal:

Your account was suspended because it was found to be violating the Twitter Rules, specifically our rules around participating in targeted abuse.

Your account will not be restored.

Now I was thoroughly confused. “Targeted abuse”? This absolutely made no sense. I have never ever done such a thing on Twitter. Heck, even in any forum I’ve never done such a thing. I felt that it was clear that only the cursory of glances was being given to my appeals, and that no-one had properly looked at my account to actually see that I was innocent of what I was accused of.

So again, I file another appeal (the text of which I saved this time), once again pleading my case and politely (always politely) asking that someone please take the time to look and see that I did not make these infractions.

Then, this afternoon at ~2:40pm (before which I had already set up a new account, based on the previous ‘will not be restored’ email), I get another email:

We have now unsuspended your account. If you have any trouble logging in, you can request a password reset email here.

Please note that it may take an hour or so for your follower and following numbers to return to normal. Let us know if we can help with anything else.

So, that’s it. Nothing that explained what happened. Just a series of canned replies in response to every appeal. I’m certainly disappointed that I never found out what caused all of this, but I do consider myself extremely lucky that I was able to get the account unsuspended finally. Having searched around, I see that many other people who have been trying to appeal for un-suspension have not been so lucky.

This all happened on Sunday February 26th.

I’d been having some pain in my chest area for the past few days – pretty much center of the torso, right in the middle. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t anything like appendicitis or heart issues. I had thought originally that it was something like a bruised rib or two somehow, but figured that it was more in the muscular/soft tissue area than on the bones.

I made the decision on Sunday morning to head to the nearby emergency room, since none of the nearby walk-in clinics were available. Fortunately for me, I live just a few blocks from Ridge Meadows Hospital, so just less than 15 minutes walk away.

I was actually triaged very quickly, so not much waiting around in the waiting area. First called to answer some questions to the triage nurse, along with getting blood pressure, temperature and pulse checked. Then sent back to the waiting room and told to fill up one of those little jars. After that, it wasn’t too long before I was in for some quick blood draws, and then out to wait again. It then wasn’t too long before I was called in, given one of those oh-so-fetching hospital gowns and given my own little curtained off area to wait in, in what was called a ‘Raz Zone’.  ‘Raz’, for those not familiar, is a ‘Rapid Assessment Zone’ – so saying ‘Raz Zone’ is about as correct as saying ‘PIN Number’ or ‘ATM Machine’. The idea of ‘Raz’ is to reduce overcrowding in emergency departments and reduce wait times. I’m really not sure how effective that was, because it was 2 hours from when I was given that gown to when a doctor came by to see what was going on.

After describing to him the issues, he organized a quick ECG for me to take, as well as getting another blood test done (to test for a cardiac enzyme). That would take around 45 minutes to get that test back. Whee, more waiting.

In the end, the ECG looked good and there were no issues found with the other blood test.

So, I left about 4.5 hours later with a prescription for some pills to help with acid-reflux. It’s possible that may be helping, but it’s still a little early (even today – Tuesday) to know for sure yet.

I’m not sure who noticed, but I haven’t really been around the last couple of weeks. Not on Twitter, nor Telegram, nor Facebook, nor anywhere else.

Because the world and life sucks right now, and I retreated inwards and away from it and everyone.

It’s not just all the bad political stuff that’s all over the place right now – primarily the UK and US – but that is definitely part of it.

A good part of it is feeling increasingly trapped by situation.

For example, as much as I adore Otter, my angry little cat as I call him, his needs from being diabetic now make it impossible for me to spontaneously do any kind of travel for a weekend. I used to be able to leave him and Cylia and drive down to Seattle for a couple of days. Can’t do that anymore, as he needs to have his blood glucose levels checked morning and evening, and be given insulin. This isn’t something that I can easily ask a local neighbour or friend to do. Many people, even pet sitting services, are squeamish about doing such things – despite how easy it actually is. Now if I want to take a trip, I have to book him in to be boarded at the local vet office, where they’ll do it for $35/night. I cannot even do a slightly cheaper option of boarding him elsewhere with someone who would be willing to do the check/shots. I did that over Christmas while I was in the UK, and Otter got himself in such a state that he needed to get taken to an emergency vet clinic.

I feel trapped by my job. I’ve been with the same company for over 13 years. I’d like to get out, but it’s tough to find something out here similar enough to what I do to make me look worth it to a company. I’m a senior support engineer, sure, but supporting the things I do might be considered work of a systems administrator, and there’s enough that changed with other software and hardware in that kind of job that I’m not sure I would be considered qualifiers for that role anymore. Adding to that is how much the on-call stuff is getting to me. On-call starts Friday 8am and runs until the following Friday at 8am – a whole week. During these weeks, I’m constantly on edge outside of working hours, and can’t sleep properly. The last time I was on (which helped put me into these doldrums) I maybe got 3 hours a night.I can’t really even do much personal stuff out of work hours, because the primary people who are typically in front of me now are so new and almost always end up escalating to me, so I don’t trust things enough to feel comfortable to go far from the house.  I have another week of this starting Friday, and then two more weeks a week after the first one finishes. Not looking forward to that at all.

All that’s happening down in the US right now is making it far less likely that I could find a position and move down there. The uncertainties over NAFTA (and thus, the TN-1 visas), and the chance that the H1-B and L-1 programs could here restructured enough to make it impossible for me to get in that way mean that it’s unlikely that a company might want to take the risk on someone like me. Of course, compared to up here in the Vancouver area, down in the US is where all the jobs that interest me seem to be, as well as much, muchbetter pay.

It’s not just all these things, though. Nothing else seems to be exciting or fun anymore. I’m not sure what would even be fun for me. Things that I once may have had fun doing all seem to have dried up or no longer seem rewarding.

I turned 43 towards the end of last year, and I have no idea where my life is going. Things just seem stalled… stuck… going nowhere. 20 years ago, back in early 1997, I had interviewed for a company out in the San Francisco Bay Area, had gotten an offer for a job, and I knew that my life was taking a new direction. By 2001, when I was laid off from that company while going through the US Permanent Residency process, things started to look uncertain. Then in mid 2003, the year my H1-B visa was going to expire, and being laid off from another Bay Area company, things really looked uncertain and that I’d have to leave everything behind and move back to the UK. Then in December 2007 I got my Canadian permanent residency. Things may have been going good then, but the Canadian citizenship I got back in September 2012 was bittersweet. That may be when things became ‘What now?’ I still have no idea ‘what now?’. I’m not sure that, long term, Vancouver is the place for me. It serves a purpose now, but things just don’t feel like I properly connect here. I feel that I’m always too much out on the edge of things and not part of anything.

I don’t know anymore. I’m now rambling. This post started as something that I was writing on the train this morning, and now seems disjointed thoughts. Maybe I’ll leave this up, maybe I won’t. I just don’t know.

Starting to consider my vacation plans for this year.

Here’s what I have on the board so far:

• VancouFur – Vancouver, BC – March 9 through 12
  I don’t have a room for this, because the hotel announcement was made while I was on a work trip and I missed it. I’m not that fussed about going this year, but I could probably go down for Saturday or something. I don’t really know anyone else specifically coming up for it. My enthusiasm for it this year is fairly low, and brought lower based upon this next one.

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• Furnal Equinox – Toronto ON – March 16 through 29
  This is the big one in March for me, instead of VancouFur. It’s a convention that I’ve never been to before, and to see people I don’t often see. I’m quite looking forward to this one, and I’ll get to mock downtown Toronto in person for a change ;>
  Planning to take both Kootenay and Penryn to this.

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• Star Wars Celebration – Orlando, FL – April 13 through 16
  Something that Dreams had talked me into going to, and I still have to see if I can get a decent flight. Only costume I’d be bringing to this one would be Qesnel, since he’s my Jedi gryphon.

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• Fur-Eh! – Edmonton, AB – June 15 through 18
  Another new convention for me, and one that I’d thought about going for some years previous. Figure that I’ll once again be taking Kootenay and Penryn, but perhaps may even have something new too.
  I booked a two-bed room for this, and still need to get someone to room share.

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• Megaplex – Orlando, FL – August 4 through 6
  I went to this one last year and had a pretty good time, meeting some long-time Internet friends in person finally. Decided that I would head back this year as well. Already booked a two-bed room, and looking to room share.

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• Midwest FurFest – Rosemont, IL – November 30 through December 3
  While I’ve blocked out space for this one, I’m only going to go if I can get a room in the Hyatt once they open. In 2016 I was lucky and managed to get a room share in the Hyatt, and I’m glad that I did. Having done the walk through the overhead passages, it really does seem like a heck of a long way to do that in a full costume. I know a number of people who did that walk in full costume, and heard just how exhausting it was to even do anything once they got to the Hyatt.

Even with all of those, I still have 14 days of vacation still left to use. That’s one of the pluses about having worked at this company for over 13 years; I max out my vacation with 26 days, and then picked up another two for having worked two days when the company was closed over the Christmas/New Year break.

So, considering that I still have time to use, I’m wondering… what else should I do? I’m semi-tempted by Biggest Little Fur Con, except for it being just a couple of weeks before Fur-Eh!

It also seems that the majority of the time booked off is slanted heavily towards the first half of the year, so I would like to think about something else in the latter part of the year.

If anyone has any ideas, please reply to my Twitter post.

I’ll be updating this post with URLs of locations that have fursuit photos from Midwest FurFest 2016.

• SeanC / DaIrishGoat
• ChaosReign
• Andy Fox
• ILiveInAWhaleCarcass
• Hyshaji Nightdragon
• Racsky
• Alysterwolf
• TofuSnow
• Vayro Gryphon